


Advent: Number

by FyrMaiden



Series: Klaine Advent 2015 [14]
Category: Glee
Genre: Genetic Engineering, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 19:11:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5427422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FyrMaiden/pseuds/FyrMaiden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rachel recognises Blaine as another genetically engineered baby, and is concerned that he hasn't told Kurt about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Advent: Number

She can’t prove a thing, at first, but Rachel Berry - part-time busybody and full-time diva - is absolutely certain, in her own mind at least, that her best friend’s new boyfriend is exactly the same as her. She’s almost entirely certain that he’s a manufactured ‘designer’ baby, and she’s convinced that he has - just like her own, hidden high on her ribs beneath her right arm - a barcode and product number embedded in his skin. She doesn’t know why she thinks it, but if she were put on the spot, she’d say that it’s in how he looks. She just doesn’t think people like Blaine exist by accident, just the same way that people like her don’t. 

There’s also something in the way Kurt talks about him; Blaine is their age, almost 32 years old, but his list of accomplishments is as impressive as her own, and he gets that look in his eyes that she knows she does as well, when he talks about Kurt. As if he’s only capable of one emotion at a time, and he feels it with his whole body. He looks at Kurt as if Kurt is his entire world, and she knows she does the same. She’s joked before that she’s like Tinkerbell, that she needs the applause to live. In reality, she’s more like Tinkerbell in that her tiny body can only distill one emotion - joy, rage, love. Blaine’s tiny body is the same. It’s a minor flaw in the design process; somehow the babies struggle to learn the nuances of mixed emotion. They feel everything in absolutes. They’re intense, single-minded, focussed on their goals. Blaine reminds her of herself, and that’s why she thinks he’s one of them.

Rachel isn’t really snooping when she gets her confirmation. She’s just climbing out of the pool at her gym when she sees Blaine slip beneath the water across from her. He disappears for a moment, but when he comes up again, his back to her, she sees - with her perfect eyesight - the barcode and number low on the back of his neck. She smiles to herself, and thinks, if nothing else, it explains his style. The barcodes aren’t anything to be ashamed of, but most of the babies - adults now - like them don’t go out of their way to display them. They’re private. They’re like - like birthmarks, except that they were never born, not technically. The mark on Blaine’s neck tells her that he, like her, was meticulously designed and carefully gestated in a synthetic womb, watched almost every second for anomalies by a team charged with ensuring his viability and health before he was brought out into the world, screaming and scared, to be sent home with the people who had commissioned him. She sees him looking at her, and she lifts her arms to pull her hair back from her face, turns sideways slightly so he can see the barcode on her ribs. He ducks his head and blushes when she looks at him again, and then he pushes away from the wall, towards the far end of the pool. Rachel hauls herself upright and pads into the changing room.

She waits for him in the stands, sits on a step with hot tea in a paper cup held between her palms. As with everything else they do, Blaine swims like he was born in water, and she counts the lengths of the pool. He swims a full mile and then stops, drags himself out of the water, and looks around him. He sees her in the stands, and she waves briefly. 

He joins her quickly, his hair styled and his collar buttoned, his bowtie neat at the base of his throat. She notices his ankles when he crosses his legs, and his wrists when he shakes her hand, and she thinks that whoever was responsible for the physical parts of him did their best work. But - 

“Does Kurt know?” she asks, without preamble. Blaine’s face flickers into a frown that smooths again almost immediately.

“Does he know about you?” he asks, and she huffs a sigh.

“We shared an apartment for four years in college,” she says. Blaine makes a face that implies that that proves nothing, and she scowls herself. 

“I’m not ashamed of what I am,” she says. “My dads chose my base genetics really carefully.” 

“My mom was the same,” Blaine says, “My brother helped her. She wanted him to feel like part of the process.”

“Is you brother like us?” she asks, and Blaine shakes his head. 

“No.” He doesn’t volunteer more, but he does say, “So does Kurt know about you?” 

“Yes,” she says, and then, “Although it was an accident. We were getting tattoos, and he saw the writing on my ribs and felt kinda betrayed, because it was supposed to be our first.”

Blaine laughs softly, and nods his head. “The numbers aren’t a tattoo though,” he says. “Any more than a birthmark is.”

“Which is what I told him,” she says. “He was totally sceptical, which I suppose is fair. It’s not like most of us talk about what we are. So I showed him the Center’s website, and then he found the pricelist.” 

Blaine makes air quotes with his fingers, “‘What we are’?” he says. “I’m one hundred percent human, I don’t know about you. I’m not ashamed.” 

“No?” Rachel sips her tea, and then, “I mean, you’re hiding your number.”

Blaine runs his hand over his hair, smooths the hair already flat around his ears, and says, “I’m not hiding it. I’m just not advertising it.” Rachel snorts a laugh.

“Semantics. Does Kurt know?” 

“Believe it or not, Rachel, two grown men in a relationship have probably seen one another naked at least once. And I’m not _hiding_ it. He’s seen my barcode.” Blaine sounds defensive now, his voice rising, and Rachel makes a shushing sound. It’s to no avail though; Blaine gathers his bag and stomps down the stairs, and casts her an unreadable look from the bottom of them. Rachel sits a while longer and watches the swimmers, and then leaves quietly herself.

She doesn’t think about it much, and doesn’t invade Blaine’s privacy by just asking Kurt if there’s anything weird or strange about Blaine, but when Kurt invites her round for dinner because he has something he wants her to be the first to know. She agrees, and then spends the day in anticipation before arriving twenty minutes early. Kurt lets her in, and she follows him through to the kitchen, where Blaine stands, tending a pan, a tasting spoon hovering near his mouth. Rachel is most surprised to see him wearing a wide boatneck sweater, the lines of his barcode clearly visible. Kurt wraps an arm around him and presses a kiss to the numbers, and Blaine smiles at him over his shoulder. 

“The food will burn,” he says, when Kurt kisses his mouth as well. 

“It’s fine,” Kurt says, but pulls away all the same. Blaine looks at Rachel, who touches her ribs, and Blaine reaches to touch his own barcode, offers her a smile. She smiles back.

The conversation is idle until they sit down to eat, and then Kurt grips Blaine’s hand in his own. For the first time, Rachel sees the rings on their fingers, and she claps her hands and squeaks.

“You’re engaged!” she says, her voice shrill with excitement, and Blaine grins and inclines his head. Kurt nods and smiles.

Rachel doesn’t want to be as surprised as she is, but Blaine is the first baby like her that she’s seen get married, though she knows he can’t actually be the first. But it reminds her once again that for everything that makes them different, they’re people first. And she could have that too.


End file.
